Facing the World: October 2015

23 October 2015

Spotting Tilakas in Bangkok

Navaratri is a festival dedicated to the worship of the Hindu deity Durga. The word Navaratri means "nine nights" in Sanskrit, nava meaning nine and ratri meaning nights. During these nine nights and ten days, nine forms of Durga aka Devi aka Shakti are worshipped. Navaratri is an important major festival and is celebrated all over India, Nepal, and even Thailand. Despite the fact that many Thais are Buddhists, they combine easily the Hinduist pantheon of colourful gods with Buddha's teaching that god does not exist.

During Navaratri, many Thai beauties line up at Bangkok's Sri Mariamman Temple aka Wat Prasri Maha Umathewee in order to receive a very distinctive blessing from one of the resident Hindu priests: a red "Indian" tilaka is added to their pretty Thai faces…

The tilaka mark is made of sandalwood paste which has supposedly a cool, soothing effect and the fragrance helps to maintain a pure and clear mind. Additionally, as a "third eye", it might provide perception beyond ordinary sight; boy, oh boy...

Portrait photographs of Thai beauties with red tilaka marks in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-10b Noticing Tilakas in Bangkok

Portrait photographs of Thai beauties without tilaka marks in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-12b Participating in Rural Yi Peng

Flickr Album 2015-11j Watching a Lanna Street Parade

Flickr Album 2015-11i Facing Chiang Dao's Tuesday Market

Flickr Album 2015-11b Cheering Northern Thai Dancers

Flickr Album 2015-10a Plucking Bangkok's Flowers

17 October 2015

Plucking Bangkok's Flowers

Pak Khlong Talat is a market in the heart of Bangkok, Thailand, that sells flowers, fruit, and vegetables. It is the primary flower market in Bangkok and has been cited as a "place of symbolic values" to Bangkok residents. Though the market is open 24/7, it's busiest before dawn, when boats and trucks arrive with flowers from nearby provinces.

Facing the World, © Matt Hahnewald, people, closeup, street portrait, Thailand, Bangkok, flower market, flowers, saleslady, flash, 50 mm prime lens, florist

The market accommodates both consumers and wholesalers and has a wide variety of customers. Many local florists and flower lovers visit the market in the early morning hours to stock their shops and houses for the coming day...

The market has a long history. During the reign of Rama I (1782 - 1809), a floating market took place on the site of the modern Pak Khlong Talat. By the reign of Rama V (1868 - 1910), it had changed to a fish market. The fish market was eventually converted to today's produce market, which existed for over 60 years. Eventually, the market's focus has shifted from produce to flowers which range from local species (e.g. jasmine, chrysanthemum, gerbera, orchids, roses) to imported species (e.g. tulips, snapdragons, iris, lisianthus, delphinium).

Props and accessories for flower arrangements are also plentiful, whether vases, flower pots, floral foam, ribbons, florist wire, twigs or all kinds of decorative leaves imaginable. If one visits the market, one will be able to see the pretty Thai florists and flower arrangers working on delicate garlands and intricate displays.

Street portrait photographs of Bangkok's beautiful florists in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-10a Plucking Bangkok's Flowers

Street portraits from Bangkok's floating markets in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2013-04a Savouring Thai Floating Markets

16 October 2015

Hitting on Asia's Genderqueers

Gender consists of more than two distinct, opposite and disconnected categories; it’s a rather long male-female continuum with infinite possibilities and ceaseless gradual transitions in-between the two extremes. Genderqueer is the catch-all name for gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine - identities which are thus outside of the simplified Mars-Venus gender binary; genderqueer is not transgendered. There are many proud and beautiful genderqueer people on this planet, especially in South and Southeast Asia where the map is never the territory...

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Philippines, Bohol Island, Tagbilaran, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, genderqueer, transgender

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Thailand, Songkhla, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, posing, genderqueer, transgender

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Indonesia, Sumatra, Banda Aceh, sexual ambiguity, ambiguous, genderqueer, posing, transgender

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, night, Asia, Thailand, Prachuap Khiri Khan, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, genderqueer, posing, hand-held fan, transgender

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Malaysia, Kota Kinabalu, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, long hair, bosomy, genderqueer, transgender

"Gender is like a Rubik’s Cube with one hundred squares per side,

and every time you twist it to take a look at another angle,

you make it that much harder a puzzle to solve..."

(Sam Killermann, The Social Justice Advocate's Handbook: A Guide to Gender)

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Malaysia, Kuching, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, long hair, genderqueer, stripe cake, kek lapis, transgender

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Malaysia, Kota Kitabalu, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, genderqueer, transgender

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Indonesia, Java, Yogyakarta, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, heavily made-up, genderqueer, transgender, singer

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Thailand, Bangkok, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, genderqueer, blue eyes, transgender, shemale

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Malaysia, Sarawak, Serian, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, genderqueer

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Indonesia, West Kalimantan, Sintang, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, sexually ambiguous person, make-up, genderqueer

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Thailand, Bangkok, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, genderqueer

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Malaysia, Tioman Island, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, heavily made-up, genderqueer, transgender

© Matt Hahnewald, Facing the World, people, street portrait, closeup, Asia, Thailand, Bangkok, sexual ambiguity, beautiful, ambiguous, sexually ambiguous person, transgender

More portrait photographs with exif data, geotags and other specs in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2014-05a Hitting on Asia's Genderqueers

Flickr Album 2013-03a Winking at Thai Temple Dancers

Matt Hahnewald, Street Portrait Photography:

I have always been fascinated by the human face. There are eight billion human faces on this planet which are changing every second in order to adjust their senses, optimize perception and communicate. Thereby, the human face creates an incredible diversity of expressions, offering a unique bouquet of information to other humans, animals, and machines. That's what I captured with the camera…

Feel free to check out my Flickr photo albums about cultural portrait photography at Facing the World. You can contact me via email.

What's a Portrait?

About Street Portraiture:

(i) The Street Photographer’s State of Mind

Get yourself into a resourceful, open-minded and relaxed state of mind, leave your hide-out and interact with the world. Use any silly hat, have a drink, or apply any of those fancy “think-positive” techniques. Your own state of mind will spread to and infect your portrait subject...

(ii) The Street Photographer’s Intention

Release the shutter with the deliberate intention of “Right now, I'm producing a distinctive portrait photograph”. Find your individual style by applying self-imposed technical constraints (e.g. of the theme, of the aspect ratio, of the techniques, of the lenses, of the composition); less is more...

(iii) The Street Photographer’s Waiver

Decide if it’s better to give it a miss instead of taking a bad photo. In the field, if there is a shred of doubt, don’t take this snap. It’s probably better to take a cerebral snapshot and to enjoy the situation. At your computer, if there is a shred of doubt, delete the image; it’s probably better to download a good image from the internet and to learn from it...

(iv) The Street Photographer’s Attitude

Trust the viewer's active mind. Your photo is just a small trigger for the bigger and better internal picture inside the viewer’s mind. Allow the viewer’s mind to create interesting internal pictures (and movies) by offering images of (a) parts and details, (b) symbols and logos, (c) contrasts and contradictions. Co-operate with the viewer’s creative mind, keep the viewer’s mind busy and seduce your viewer to complete your photo, to improve your photo, to add (her or his) sense to your photo, to fantasize about your photo, and to mentally exceed your own photo...

(v) The Street Photographer’s Tools

Remember the meaning of the word photography and master the light with your eye, with your camera and with your computer: (a) see the light, (b) harness the light and (c) bend the light. But, bear in mind, your shoes are your most important piece of equipment. Use them liberally to get closer (or further away, sometimes), to play with angles and to find your unique point of view...

About Portrait Lenses:

The first thing to consider is focal length. If you're using a camera with a (cropped) APS-C format image sensor (e.g. the Nikon D3100), a 50mm lens will give an effective focal length of around 75mm to 80mm. This is very close to the 85mm focal length for a full-frame camera (e.g. the Nikon D610) that's considered ideal for portraiture. Both enable headshots and half-length portraits to be taken from a comfortable distance of around 3 m, so you can direct your subject without crowding in and making them feel awkward.
One particular advantage of using an 85mm lens on a full-frame camera (or a 50mm lens on a cropped-sensor camera) for portraiture is that the short telephoto focal length has the effect of slightly compressing any prominent facial features (think noses and chins) for a bit of added flattery.
Generally, prime lenses offer superior image quality to zoom lenses, which makes the optics on test instantly appealing. Their killer feature, however, is a wide maximum aperture that's usually between f/1.4 and f/1.8 (e.g. the AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G and the AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G both from Nikon). This enables a tight depth of field, so you can blur fussy backgrounds and make the person you're shooting really stand out in an image.

Copyright:

Whereas most texts are Wikipedia-based, all the photographs used in this photo blog are copyrighted by © Matt Hahnewald (Facing the World) and cannot be copied, saved, re-produced, blogged, edited, cropped or printed without my written permission. Most of my portraits are available as high-res images (without any watermarks). Just ask and send an email specifying exactly your planned usage of this photo, or license/buy my photos directly from Alamy.

Thank you for respecting intellectual property.

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